Sun, 18 Nov 2018 00:04:03 -0500WeeblyWed, 13 Jun 2018 20:27:17 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/sweet-times-forwardI talk often about origin stories (as in, the origins of how I began to write in general, and the origin of certain stories). It can be humbling, figuring out where to start. I just found an old friend’s blog again after finally taking the time and reading the posts of a fellow author/blogger. Well… okay, I found it because I finally checked my non-school email. This author/blogger I’m talking about is a former colleague of my mother’s, when I worked with Queen City Forward in Charlotte, North Carolina for an internship. Tori Karlek is her name, and this is the post I am talking about: Why I Write. She talks about problems with actually sitting down and writing, and I do too, as does every author out there, no matter how big. And sometimes seeing a cliché message is what you need for the day, no matter how often you have seen it, because you see it at the right time. Yesterday I saw her post at the right time.

Tori started Blu Flamingos, in a way; well, at least she inspired me to do it. She told my mom and I about her website Curiously Tori one day. My mom and I got to talking, and we both thought it was a great idea to start a blog about my writing. What’s the best way to start writing? Many, many authors (including myself) would tell you to read. This was around the time I had a Facebook but no Twitter- around seven years ago. I found a lot of other authors and groups through Facebook and started to join them. And then I started reading a few of their blogs and getting a feel for things. Tori was the first (and still is) the only blog I have bothered to actually sign up for email notifications- primarily because I knew her at the time and she asked me.

I have been engaging far more on the social media world in the past couple of weeks out of necessity- initially. My posts may be a little… off centered from what I usually post about my writing because I am branching out to explore a potential future career: social media advertising, and my talking about it is a way for me to reach out. Also, part of the requirements of the class is to write two blog posts about social media every week for five weeks. This is not a bad thing Dr. Perreault, trust me, I enjoy it, I’m not just saying this to appease you. One of the biggest difficulties I have faced in the past while writing is getting over the frustration of the sheer silence of the internet. It is like trying to talk to astronauts inside a spaceship while stuck outside in the vacuum of space bare ass naked; no one is going to hear anything! I will post a question somewhere and no one answers, or I ask what someone thinks about my story and no one answers. I will get a like, or a heart, but that does not mean anything. What did you like about my writing? What is your favorite scene? Favorite character? Those are the things I need to know.

And then again, that used to matter to me. In the asynchronous world of the internet, if I keep seeing a lot of return visitors, I know deep down I have done something right. I know I am passionate, and I know it can be infectious. I know I give the characters It’s a little mystery for me, if anything, and life without mystery is boring- I believe Alfred Hitchcock said something to that effect. I can figure it out myself as I keep writing, and following the blog post/story/poetry analytics from my old Weebly site. I have not given up. Some people talk, of course, and they are proud of me, or excited that I am doing something. When I first started all of this, the writing, when I came up with something solid (my first story, Atrocity) my mom told me, “If ten years ago someone told me you would be an author, I would never have believed them.” And then I read the ending of Why I Write and Tori sums up perfectly an aspect of writing I have always known, but never brought to the forefront of why I write.

“And of course, there’s no better feeling than having written. You have a very real, tangible thing that came from your brain. You created it. Exactly how you wanted to create it. Read it over and over with delight. Share with the world – or don’t. (You should at least share with your mom.) It’s yours. And no one can take it from you.”

My stories; they are for me. I am writing the change I want to see in the entertainment industry. I do enjoy sharing all of them; I truly do, even with all the silence. The vocal internet goers just happen to agree with what I have to write- that is why they continue to read, right? I got tired of characters who make really stupid decisions to drive a horror plot, so I made the main heroes of Ruby Caves a professional werewolf hunter and his family. I got tired of my own violent stories and wrote about the romance between a sweet old man and his wife in Nice Albert. I wanted to see the video game Doom with a plot and in written form so I wrote Westward Prophets. Those are all just little pieces of me in a much grander world. I wanted to explore the world hidden right beside the world of humans and wrote the collection Peripheral Shadows. If I tried to write for everybody online I would go insane. I needed that confirmation- as I will probably need that confirmation again sometime in the future, life is like that. I don’t need the whole world. I need my little troop of dedicated fans, and one of the biggest fans is me.

]]>Fri, 08 Jun 2018 17:32:36 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/i-flamingoSeven years ago I began my blog and created a Facebook page which has since evolved from me simply stating the title of the blog post or story, to me becoming far more engaged in my small community. Profile pictures are simply pictures of me trying out different styles of beards, and accurately depict my path through weight-loss. It's subtle, but I am definitely still losing weight, but I digress. ​

​Above is the official new logo to my entire operation. I have shared this image on both Facebook and Twitter, but will only place this as the new profile picture on Facebook. On my Facebook page, I am representing Blu Flamingos and what it stands for. On Twitter, I represent myself as an author, Robert Hassan Kahil, and what I can do to help the writing community grow on social media. My site's (both of them) have the motto "When innovation meets irrelevant birds..." for a reason. As far as I know, I'm kind of following at least some of the advice Suzanne Rose gives. In the beginning, Blu the Flamingo meant nothing. It still doesn't mean too much; though it is eye catching and unique enough to attract attention. Blu the Flamingo is visual representation of how my writing works- the plots may seem simple, but the characters add a lot of depth.

Here is some of the greater detail of my engagement. Number one is in reference to a post from my older site, entitled Fightin' Words, about threats, insults, and other various vocalizations in Ruby Caves. The second is one of the earlier pictures I shared from another page (I had never really done this until very recently).

Other changes include talking about my favorite actors (praise for Guillermo del Toro about his wins for the beautiful Shape of Water, and mourning the loss of certain public figures like Stephen Hawking). Typically though, if I have small updates about my stories that would not warrant an entire blog post for, I leave those to Facebook and Twitter for some micro blogging.

]]>Thu, 07 Jun 2018 01:35:40 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/nsfw-do-not-read​I make it very clear that some of my writing is not for children. I have no qualms and no regrets. They have plenty of entertainment options. My primary portfolio is for readers sixteen and up. By that point, their parents should be aware of what their children are watching/viewing. Now, not all of my work is an exploitative gore-fest. Readers know that.

I make it very clear that some of my writing is not for children. I have no qualms and no regrets. They have plenty of entertainment options. My primary portfolio is for readers sixteen and up. By that point, their parents should be aware of what their children are watching/viewing. Now, not all of my work is an exploitative gore-fest. Readers know that.

The Misfortunate Tomb of Fortunato, Nice Albert, Mickey, and the upcoming A Splash of Rum are not particularly bloody- and some of them have no violence at all. Cursing, swearing, call it what you want; a lot of people do it and that is reflected in my stories. In a particularly frightening situation, as in Red’s War, after encountering a wolf who turns its head completely upside down, the main hero Jackie Red screams out, “What the fuck? What the fuck?” As is natural. He would not say “What the funk? What the funk?” because he is not about to enter a dancecompetition with the wolf.

In a post entitled Creature Violence, I had a few paragraphs describing the following events: a mother and son witness a mutilated deer being finished off by a werewolf. It is extremely graphic, and for the purposes of this post, I am not going to reiterate what was described. However, I did nothing to truly warn my readers of the graphic content on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. The two bloody YouTube videos and the two excerpts on violent scenes can be quite a shock- though I do warn people ahead of time in the blog post. That is fine and dandy, but a warning before hand would have been appropriate. NSFW does not just mean sex and nudity.

Luckily, nothing about my post falls under Facebook’s community standards (specifically under Violence and Criminal Behavior, and Questionable Content- Graphic Violence). Videos and imagery are the best ways to attract viewers. I am now glad I did not post the video of the zebra getting mutilated by the crocodile because it would be flagged down almost immediately- had I not warned the viewers. Going back, here is what the post would have looked like.

Blu Flamingos

Creature Violence in my stories is used in a natural manner, even when it is a paranormal event, to further place my readers in the scene. Animals do not care for the squeamish nature of humans. Warning: Graphic Videos and Some Language(Link here)Video?

If my readers do not want to see anything of that manner, now they are free to look away before even viewing my post. It is all about respecting the rules of Facebook. The post with video in bold is in reference to how I would place the video, if I were to actually include it. I would take the same discretionary measures when using Twitter, and especially on LinkedIn, just by the very nature of that site. If I really wanted to, of course, I can hawk it off as opening a discussion on how humans are simply viewers to animal violence and can ultimately do nothing to stop it- they can only delay the inevitable bloodshed of another by saving one.

]]>Sun, 18 Mar 2018 20:35:25 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/counting-demons​Before I began writing Westward Prophets, before I even came up with the extremely vague ideas it would hold, I watched three demon related movies/TV shows: The Exorcist (on Fox), The Conjuring, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

​Each presents possession in a unique light. The Exorcist, while focusing on the family of the possessed, is interwoven with the lives of the priests performing the rites and politics within the Vatican. The Conjuring takes in the accounts of the paranormal investigators and how cases mentally and physically affect them. The Exorcism of Emily Rose looks at demonology with a scientific and legal approach, with the primary focus on being a priest being sent to court for an exorcism gone wrong. I enjoy all three (although The Conjuring 1 & 2 are my tops, with consistent viewings throughout the year).

However, the theme of a family dealing with a possessed family member is such a tired trope I refused to work with it now. Admittedly going big has not always worked out for me- Nutmeg for instance, because I blew all that out too quickly. This time I wanted to go big though, full stops. Why limit a demon to a human body? They can be more, given enough strength. So how do I get a demon, who needs a human vessel to survive on Earth, into the physical realm without too much explanation? One, I was ignoring possession altogether so I did not have to work with those tropes. Second, why not have the Prince of Darkness himself appear on Earth? Face it, he may not be as powerful as God, but Lucifer is still an extraordinarily powerful figure. It would make sense for his power to transfer to the demons up above so they can actually have some fun.

Demon possession in those movies is only focusing on one person or family, and then finally at the end when the exorcism is taking place it reveals its true powers. I am getting at demons being an incredibly dangerous species. Yeah, it is horrible for one person to be possessed, but the level of power only extends to that family. Not too many demon movies out there where the possessed goes out and kills a lot of people. Sadistic, that I wanted mass carnage? No. And why not bring more demons into play? This is very common in novels and short stories, but I was influenced by movies. Also, obviously, the Book of Revelation.

The Book of Revelation, whatever you may believe, is horrifying. Lucifer is finally powerful enough to reach the physical world with his legion and cause seven years of mass chaos before all of the rest of the sinners are saved. It is war, an invasion, and I wanted to finally play with the different levels of violence associated with demons. Because of the mass amounts of violence in the story I needed (it is definitely my most violent short, but nowhere near the goriest- Wish List) Isaac and the reader to lose hope in his situation from the very beginning and go from there. This is the End involves everything in the Book of Revelations too, but that is a smaller scope. I wanted it big, bigger, and biggest- a trilogy about the war between mankind and Lucifer. My favorite part to write of the story was the Leviathan in the end. That’s just a purely evil image that stuck in my head:

The Leviathan was so large, Isaac could see the quarter mile long tentacle with bus-sized suckers, all topped with a six fingered hand the size of a two story house reach out of the ground, out of the fire, and scrape away at the heavens above. He realized then, just how little envy he had for the soldiers facing the Leviathans. There were four of them, protecting a twenty mile radius in the valley that held Exodus Lake. In conclusion, I have a personal goal for myself, called MDSA. Make Demons Scary Again. That is my ultimate goal whenever I write about demons from now on, and while probably not fulfilled entirely in Black Gospel City, it will be in the final story of the series, as of yet untitled.

"The Last Judgement" Jean Cousin, 1560 AD

]]>Wed, 14 Feb 2018 19:54:47 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/sparks-of-loveI'm going to focus on romance today, because there's nothing better to discuss on such a wonderful day. Below is a short, tender moment between Lt. Sarah Bryson and her husband, William Bryson, from Ruby Caves. This is an important scene. The hug, the quietness- a moment to let everyone relax before the extreme, inevitable violence. This is one of the parts where I actually (mostly) stray from putting my characters into emotional turmoil. Here, Sarah is fighting the past, even while remembering it. Remembering helps her keep focus of what's ahead of her.

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Sarah stole a fry off William’s plate, smiling to herself as he didn’t notice, and plopped it into her mouth before he could turn to her. The early stages of a food coma and exhaustion began to hit her as she watched one of the storage locker reality shows with heavy eyes. She could hear Doc slurping wet food and ramming his bowl into the wall with his snout in the kitchen. Michael sat on the other couch. His plate had three bites of hot dog left. He was beginning to doze now too. Reluctantly, Sarah pulled herself from William’s body warmth and collected all of the paper plates. She threw them away, rinsed out Doc’s bowl, and turned to see William heading into their room at the end of the hall.

Sarah squatted and scratched Doc behind the ears. She ran her hands down under his doggie sweater, allowing his rough fur to warm her skin. For a few seconds everything felt right in the world. Right then and there was the final stretch of the first night of their vacation, one of many- from her home in New Jersey, and then down to Savannah, a swing around to the French Quarter, and then a short trip to Crater Lake. They finally went home after nearly one month on the road. A month away from Murdoch, from the sheriff’s department, from the LRSC headquarters, and most importantly, from the still-fresh blood left behind by Adrian Fayette. She had to admit to herself though, this is not a vacation; we are biding our time. Murdoch licked her chin three times, distracting her from the burdens of the past. We shouldn’t have to run. We did nothing wrong. No doubts. “Stop,” she gasped, laughing, freeing herself from his sweater after he continued his wet attack. “Stop, stop, stop.” His tail beat against the breakfast bar.

She stood straight, escaping from the dog. She groaned as she stretched her back. William sat on the couch, hands on his elbows, hands folded before his face, with an enigmatic smile towards Michael. He stood up and came to the kitchen. Murdoch stepped out of his way, nails clacking. They really, really need to be clipped, she thought blankly. She reached up to hold her cheek against William’s shoulder. The dog left them left them to their love and loudly snorted in Michael’s face.

“Oh my god go away,” Michael bemoaned. She saw Michael shove Doc’s head away with his hand. Murdoch groaned like an old man and curled up in front of the couch. Sarah latched on to the subtle scent of William’s eleven-hour-old cologne. It reminded her of the Pine Barrens, and the fire she had started in a pit on the first night they met twenty four years ago. She adored the scent, and had even bought Michael a bottle for his sixteenth birthday, back in April. Still so young, she thought with a bittersweet smile for her son. They held each other for a long time. Sarah almost fell asleep, trusting that he would hold her there until the end of the world if she needed. William gently stroked her back. He breathed in the scent of her hair, almost like he was trying to remembers, if he would lose her in all the chaos. Impossible, Sarah thought with resolution, you’ll never lose me. Eventually he let her go.

“I need to warn Michael about the hallucinations,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” she nodded. They could go back to cuddling later. It was sure pleasant while it lasted. Their son’s mental stability and ability to sleep came first.

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This scene is also important because it lets us know the strength of their love for each other. They're finally able to act like a husband and wife, even for a small moment. It does not matter that I add Michael's tussle with the clingy Murdoch. Both dog and son are a major part of their life, and one of many major bonding points. They work off each other like a fine red wine and cheese. Sarah, hot headed. William, cold and calculating.

Now, we end with another moment. If you've seen my Twitter or Facebook feeds, you've seen this.

Sarah: "I didn't fall in love with the best William. I fell in love with you."

Have a beautiful day ladies and gentlemen, and enjoy this phenomenal romantic short film that perfectly captures this Valentines Day and lost loves.

]]>Sat, 27 Jan 2018 02:02:50 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/slow-creep​An old coworker of mine from Camp Dogwood used to read my stories when there was a pause in our work. When she read my horror stories she always found them frightening. They weren’t overtly frightening though. I asked her on a walk after work one night what she had always meant. She explained that what I had in my stories was a slow creep factor. Everything would be normal, but at the same time something was obviously very wrong with the scene. I put focus on certain things that would make sense in our natural world but still have a feeling of wrongness and ebbing dread. Little things too. A sentence of oddness, and then I immediately move on to something normal.

She called this my slow creep factor. She also explained about how relentless I was. Once I started, I did not let go. The scene comes from Harold the Wondrous; a short serial series I intend to publish here on the site in the future. Take a gander at the first episode below. Let it be noted that until the entire web-series is finished, this will be the only chapter available. It begins after he goes outside to eat his eggs. The embedded document does not seem to work on mobile, so take a gander at the PDF instead.

No one addressing the domestic violence is actually a plot point in the story. The reason I keep it out is for practicality. This story moves at a relentless pace. Not letting the reader breathe in that moment forces them to be pulled along. There are emotions, but in this story, unlike, say, Red’s War or The Misfortunate Tomb of Fortunato, Harold’s thoughts do not intrude. He is able to ask the question the reader would be asking- what the fuck? However, from the time he witnesses Max striking the boy to speaking to him is not enough time to get into a public altercation. There is no intruding paragraph of reflection or backstory that I would have in another story, like those mentioned above. It may seem like I am driving the plot, but it is Harold that consciously decides to take the time later to confront Max.

A summer day starts with the desire for ice cream, is pushed into darkness by child abuse and unanswered questions, and ends with the acquired ice cream. As if nothing happened. Consequences to violence, and the waiting period of its path, allow me to formulate other plot points and characters that will also come into play. If I blew it too early with Harold immediately getting into a fight with Max, the terror will be less impactful. Every act of violence in my stories has a huge reach over everyone in the immediate area. Some stories require small acts of violence before the chaos ruptures, but not this one. The best way I can describe it is the movie Drive, with Ryan Gosling. Here is a slow, painfully beautiful scene before the explosive violence that startles everyone. This is the effect I strive to create with Harold the Wondrous. At least in this story he actually talks. ​

]]>Sat, 20 Jan 2018 02:40:49 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/the-finish-lineGood anxiety exists- it is the feeling I have as I draw nearer to completing my magnum opus. I see that finish line. I can see people cheer me on as time goes on. It is not drawing away, as if in a dream, it is staying where it is, waiting for me because it knows I will get there eventually. My fingers are numb from the keyboard and my wrists hurt as I continue to write with pencil and pen on notebooks. As do my eyes, staring at a computer screen for long periods of time. But man oh man is it worth it! No pain, no gain right?

Official title of the short story collection: "Peripheral Shadows"

(Current) Synopsis: The world we believe to be neat and orderly is slowly beginning to crack, allowing the shadows just outside of the light to peek out and interact with us. These are the stories of ordinary people seeing those shadows, and the covert organizations attempting to keep the peace.

Nice Albert: Does Fate care that Albert knows the future?

Owl People of Winnie County: Bradley Vogel III attempts to unravel his grandfather's past when he and his friends discover a disastrous plot that will alter the course of our country forever.

Manny: A cataclysmic storm tests Manny's abilities as a night guard on his first shift at the mall when it brings more than just rain.

Mutant Cowboy Space Pirate: On the eve of his birthday, Halloween, 12 year old Stuart encounters the deadliest creature of the night. Unfortunately, the vampire has its hungry eyes set on the entire, unprepared city.

]]>Sat, 13 Jan 2018 17:03:44 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/wine-vodka-and-murderers​When I first began writing in full in high school, I was concerned with the number of what I thought were unoriginal movies. And then I read about an author saying that a lot of them start with fan fiction of sorts. I do not personally read too much fan fiction. A lot of it just gets too… weird and perverted, and that’s saying something if I’m worried about seeing it. Who knows, I could just be looking in the wrong places. None of that really matters now anyway. I write my own fan fiction, or that’s where some of it started!

​We all need a wall to lean against for support, and another story is that support. While in community college, I was given an assignment to write a story in the style of Edgar Allan Poe. I read through a book of his collected stories and poems I had bought some time before (and still cherish now) and really tried to think about it. What spawned was the cold and dreary, TheMisfortunate Tomb of Fortunato. Here’s where the real beauty of the public domain comes in. Fun fact: copyright law dictates that the copyright lasts for the author’s life, plus seventy years after their death. It has been a long, long, long time since October 7, 1849. Of course, I do not have any intention of selling the story, so I am still safe, regardless.

But I didn’t want to retell The Cask of Amontillado from Montresor’s perspective. That would add no real value to the importance of the story as a whole, and maybe even lessen the impact, at least in my mind. I chose a character that had no relation to the original story so we can look and see what an outsider, in today’s world, might think of the murderer. It also adds a little closure for Fortunato. Do murderers really get away with their crimes? In reality, a lot of them unfortunately do. However, it was nice to think that eventually, karma bites one in the ass- in the form of an excavator. Montresor is still the primary focus, but he is a visitor in the story of Alfonso and Mr. Luchesi.

The real crest of the Montresor family.

​For Vodka Men, that was an assignment to write one of the stories from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. I was fascinated by the idea of the Grim Reaper as his own character since reading some of Terry Pratchett’s work. I also wanted to give into the temptation to write from the antagonists’ view point. With this is mind, all I needed to do was upgrade the weapons used, add a couple of pages for characterization of each character, including Death, and upgrade the setting to a city I lived in- Charlotte, North Carolina. I didn’t even need to hide the fact that the real Grim Reaper is hanging around. He’s in The Pardoner’s Tale. If you have not read The Pardoner’s Tale, it’s pretty interesting and might give you a little more understanding of Vodka Men. Here it is, as taken from a textbook, I guess… it looks like a textbook. Reading in the old English makes me think I’m a squire in front of a large audience. It is fun, and I haven’t read the tale in years.

Red’s War, hahaha, now that was fun. I actually did a lot of research for this one. The assignment was to write a classic fairytale with our own twist, memorize it by heart, and speak it aloud in front of the class (The Art of Storytelling). My classmates had kind of come to expect a crazy story. They knew I was an author, they knew about the stuff I put in there. It’s really, really quick but adds a lot of character to Jackie Red. Some of them even begged for me to make it scary and were quite pleased with the results. Little Red Riding Hood is a tale so old there is very little I actually had to do. I could borrow the groundworks from other interpretations. Little girl knows her way around the woods, may or not meet a wolf, and reaches her grandmother’s cottage to find that a wolf has eaten her grandmother, dressed up in her clothes, can even talk… Barring all the morals of the story- it just wouldn’t work in the modern world.

I would hope we teach kids enough about animals (not just wolves specifically) that unless it is a parrot with a limited vocabulary, they do not talk. Nor can they put on clothes… without the help of a human. Animals with clothes on them are adorable.

designtaxi.com

I mean who wouldn’t just want to dance and have a drink at the bar with the sloth? He’d be chill as hell. Probably wouldn’t get anywhere with the conversation, but I digress. I took the anthropomorphism of the wolf literally. Big teeth, big eyes, big ears; all of this describes a rather unfortunate looking human being but when you use the name Wolf in relation to this entity- I see a werewolf. And as noted in the post Creature Violence, and the excerpt Big Boy, werewolves are horrifying. In Red’s War I call the werewolf The Beast. And dialog implies he is at least 300-400 years old. This is in reference to the Beast of Gévaudan, the mythical beast that killed many people in the years 1764-1767 AD. Gévaudan is now Lozère, France. I even google mapped it to get a feel for the landscapes. I even googled what an Aubrac cow was.

To get the new actionized story I went with the Huntsman’s perspective. I answered the questions of what he was doing out there in the woods, in some interpretations anyway, and gave him a real reason and motive to fight. Little Red is his daughter, without explicitly stating that in the story. I never call her little, or Red. There was a certain amount of subtlety I needed to take for the original version, before, because of time restraints. Now of course, there are no time restraints.

At any rate, if I’m going to recreate a story in my own image, I’m going all in or not at all.

]]>Fri, 05 Jan 2018 22:48:30 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/scope-and-mayhem​If someone makes a scene in public I watch. r/PublicFreakout on Reddit is great for videos like that. Anyone would watch, because it is mostly hilarious even though sometimes it is quite frightening. As long as it is not happening to me it is funny. At any rate, some of these videos result in the cops being called, if they are not in the area already. The moral is- do something disruptive/dangerous/indecent in public and a government official (or everyone) will probably know about it. In my stories, this will even take into account a monster attack. Of course, when they arrive the authorities will have it look like nothing abnormal/paranormal/supernatural was happening in the area so everyone can move on with their relatively simple lives.

​I have it set in my stories that all of the higher ups in a local police force are aware of the LRSC (Lunar Rider Securities Corporation) and the OPDA (Outer Planet Defense Agency). They do not have to believe in what these organizations do. All they really know is to call them if a situation gets out of hand. A public relations official from each organization reaches out to the police force quarterly for…

Updates on new procedures

Believable cover stories for certain situations

Answer any questions about how to identify unknown alien or supernatural/paranormal activities

Let the force know of common entities in the area and whether they are a problem or not.

Not all entities are harmful to humans.

While out and about, the public relations officers will also visit the mayor of a town. Occasionally the public relations officers schedule their meetings at the same time, and will sit on the other officer’s meetings for fun. Afterwards, they’ll go out for drinks or food and even carpool to the surrounding towns for their next meetings. The LRSC and OPDA are close-knit groups. Their procedures are generally the same when it comes to hiding the activities they encounter. They also, not often, provide weapons and agents to each other for certain, dire situations. Friendly interactions between agents of the groups are encouraged by Director Alexander DuPont (of the LRSC) and Director Michelob Van Heusen (of the OPDA). The Directors are also very close friends.

]]>Thu, 09 Nov 2017 22:51:45 GMThttp://www.bluflamingos.com/blog/see-me-again-common-themes​There will be a lot of recurring themes, plot points, or characters in my stories. Mind you, these are only recurring, they won’t feature in every story. A lot of them are actually themes I encourage myself to write, because I am really, really tired of seeing them in other stories (of any medium).

1: Hell hath no fury like a mother and father scorned. This is simple and extremely common among a large variety of movies and literature. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. However, I will work with this theme in that it may not work all the time. This theme does lead to cathartic violence but there are consequences to a lot of bloodshed.

2: When applicable, the weather in a story will be its own, nearly sentient character. Humans and other characters will have to work around the weather to progress. This is most applicable in Manny, Wish List, and Ruby Caves. In Manny the severe thunderstorm actually provides the plot itself, but also works as one of most dangerous early threats in the story, leading to a rather gruesome scene. In Wish List the blizzard the Wendigo uses to hide in is suffocating and forcing the characters into a deep, deep isolation- perfectly articulating the cabin fever aspect of Wendigo fever. Finally, in Ruby Caves, it is the middle of winter in New Hampshire. I have done a little bit of research; it gets cold, and provides a lot of atmospheric horror. The werewolf abominations are not the only threat.

3: In a lot of popular media I see someone get infected by a zombie, Xenomorph, or hell, a demon and gets everyone killed because the infected thinks they can brave on through. Although, admittedly their teammates/family/friends aren’t self-aware enough to see that something is very clearly wrong until it’s too late. Why? Because we cannot have plot with smart people. I say otherwise though, and my characters will, if anything, at least communicate something happened at the nearest convenient time. It doesn’t mean they’re any safer, but not everyone has to die on account of them. I despise the lack of communication from some of these characters.

4: Assholes to produce fake drama. Fake drama is unfortunately almost as common as Trump screaming Fake News at everything. I’ve noticed that people are just a bunch of assholes to each other in fiction and start fights at almost all waking moments… and they’re supposed to work as a team. And then their plan falls apart because even though this team has worked together for more than a year (and are professionals) they act like little kids on the schoolyard during recess. Criminals have the worst examples. There are very few groups of criminals I can believe actually work together to achieve anything. Originally Dave was supposed to be the really quiet type, but as I’m writing An Autumn Leaf Falls, it fits better for him to build himself as a member of a working team (who have known each other for thousands of years) rather than be the common sociopath who only grunts one word answers.

5: Old gods and goddesses of mythology. A lot of them are dead in my universe, so they either go out on their own or form a cabal with a hodgepodge of different religions. Some are bad, some are good, and some never show up but are mentioned. Gods and goddesses that will appear throughout my stories are the Morrígan, Apollo, Baron Samedi (featuring in Ruby Caves), and various others such as Dionysus. I will typically try to stray away from commonly depicted deities. I want to give the smaller deities their chance to shine. This is the same principal I’m using when I write about mythological creatures such as the Wendigo or the Thunderbird. All of the deities and their culture will be treated with utmost respect. They will either play a major physical role in the stories (Morrígan, Apollo) or act as powerful “allied” confidants to the heroes (Baron Samedi, Dionysus).

6: Fights (specifically with inhuman monsters) are going to be extremely brutal and damaging to the human body. Of course, depending on where I am in the story, some will only be brutal enough to leave massive bruises or scars for the next few weeks. In terms of practicality I can’t have my heroes become so crippled they can’t do anything, and have another random character come in and save the day… Or could I? On a technical point, I will always throw the reader into the violence with the character. You’ll feel every scratch, hear your ears ringing with a roar, and feel bones snap. And don’t expect I’ll let go. You’re in it to the end. This theme falls under direct confrontation with these creatures, because, to fall under another theme- almost all of my inhuman monsters will be significantly larger than a normal human. I want to bring back the feeling of an old-school monster movie in some of my stories. Where the heroes (or villains), and audience take a nice long look up the creature’s legs, up to its face, and says to themselves, “Oh, we’re fucked.”

The scene I'm talking about starts at 3:54 where Godzilla's foot first appears, stomping, and the airport people (and audience members alike) understand that immediate respect is demanded.